We’re thrilled to have Lara from Do More Video back this week with the final part of her guest post series How To Do More Video Without Shooting Any Video:

Welcome to the final instalment of our three part series on how to create more videos without shooting a single frame. The goal of this series is to help remove the technical barriers to shooting and editing video so that you can make video even if you don’t have the gear and editing know-how.

In Part 1, we discussed how to make animated videos from just a written script, in Part 2 we introduced you to Animoto, an easy to use tool that makes professional looking videos from your photos.Today, is all about curating video by building YouTube Playlists.

YouTube Playlists

When you make a YouTube playlist, you create a collection of videos made up of existing YouTube videos. A playlist can be easily shared via URL link or by embedding the player into a webpage.

Instead of making your own videos, you are curating or choosing the best videos for your audience and packaging them together into playlists. Did you know that every minute 48 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube? That’s a lot of video. So, sifting through and finding the helpful ones for your customers is of tremendous value to them. At first, you may think it will take a lot of time to find and review all the relevant YouTube videos. But, think about how long it would take to produce an original video of your own. Also, by locating and reviewing existing video in your sector is great market research that all businesses and organizations should undertake before building their own product.

Benefits of being a curator

Here are the top reasons why I like the video curator strategy:

Quick video content: Finding and using existing YouTube video will generally take much less time than shooting and editing one original video.

Valuable market research: Sifting through current video content enables you to see what is already out there on the topic and how others have presented it.

Increase your value: As you review all the existing video content on your topic, you update your knowledge and become even more of an expert on your subject. You are now a more valuable resource for both your industry and your customers.

Create better content: Being aware of what video content already exists enables you to more accurately assess what information and service gaps exists in the specific topic area. Now you know what content to make next: i.e. content that fills the gap and satisfies the need for information on that subject. These benefits of curating apply to any content strategy from video to seminars to print.

YouTube Playlist Tips:

Length I suggest that your playlist comprise of about 5 videos at most with a total playing time of no more than 8-10 minutes. You don’t want to overwhelm your viewers. If you have a lot of videos, consider breaking them up into more than one playlist.

Set the context Use the description box for the playlist and the notes tool for each video to give your viewers an idea of what the playlist and each video is about. You should highlight in each video points of interest to viewers, or in other words, why you created the playlist and included that video. In the description box you can add hyper-links to additional resources and your call to action, which is discussed in the next tip. I strongly suggest that whenever you compile any type of resource list that you provide a brief summary of each resource. It makes your list more useful and user friendly for your customers. It also increases your credibility because it shows that you actually gave each resource some thought.

Call to action Use your playlist to help support a blog post or other social media post and provide a call to action in the post and the playlist’s description to enable viewers to take the next step to either more information or apply the knowledge they just soaked up.

You Still Need to Make Your Own Content Curating does not replace the need to make your own original content. It is however an easy way to publish initial content, supplement and support your own content, and provide you with guidance as to what original content you should create (remember the benefits to being a curator above?).

Check out Part 1 and Part 2 of this series to learn how you can create original video content without shooting or editing a single frame.

Putting it into action

We’re doing some research for a possible Financial Literacy project on Good Debt vs. Bad Debt. One of the topics we are considering is what Canadians should know about Payday Loans. So, as an example of what I have just blogged about, I quickly put together this YouTube Playlist: Payday Loans - what you should know.

I realize that my playlist is longer than the suggested length, but I really didn’t find many relevant videos on the topic. I used the notes to advise viewers that one of the videos is longer than the others.

Just from making this quick playlist I have learned that:

1. The number of videos promoting payday loans far outnumber the videos warning people about the pitfalls.

2. Of the few videos out there about what one should know about payday loans, none were Canadian focused.

Based on the lessons learned above, it initially seems that there is a need to make Canadian and perhaps even provincially-based video content, about the things that people should know about payday loans. In setting up my annotations, I will also look at the style and keywords used by the popular videos that promote payday loans in an attempt to have our videos show up as related videos so to balance the message of the promotional industry videos.

Thanks for checking out our series on how to Do More Video Without Shooting Video. If you have any feedback about the series or examples of any of the methods that you have tried for your own business, please share. We would also love suggestions on other topics that would help you to develop your capacity to make video. Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more tips and tricks on how to use online video for better results.